After spending the last couple of days setting up and conducting a garage sale, I have decided that I am going to seriously curtail my spending on things I don't need to buy, which is pretty much everything except fresh food. The economic recovery in this country will have to proceed without my contribution to it. I'm going to miss the Fred Meyer Rewards and the 2% rebate from Costco, but those too I can live without. My friend Marge was telling me about a friend of hers who would buy things just to get the reward points at Freddies, and I thought, "how sick is that?" but honestly I must admit I am a sucker for a bargain and when the clearance prices are 70% of their original prices it's hard to keep me out of the store.
I will be spending all that time that I save shopping continuing to clean out this oversized place where I live, and divesting myself of my possessions. My goal in life is to die with as few possessions as I possibly can--and hopefully God will give me a good long time to achieve this. My son Jesse has criteria for buying things, and something he would remind me of when I was visiting him in Juneau. If I saw something I liked and desired he would say, "but do you love it?" I ended up spending very little money on acquisitions on my last trip to that wonderful town, and never missed the things that I didn't buy (in fact I don't remember buying anything.)
What I do remember from that trip is a snowstorm on Easter Sunday morning and watching through the windows of the local Catholic Church a steady fall of huge flakes. I remember hiking in the woods near Douglas, where giant trees are laced with mosses and vines and look like something from an enchanted forest, especially in the steady drizzle that persists in that area and engenders the growth of such amazing arboreal beasts. I remember eating at some wonderful places, sharing meals with my middle son as he neared the end of his last year at UAS.
In Hawaii, the highlight of our trip was not the day spent shopping at Ala Moana shopping center, but the day spent snorkeling at Molokini Crater, seeing sea turtles and tropical fish, coral, even a small shark in the crystalline water off Maui. I remember feeling as if I had jumped into a giant aquarium, warm and salty and amazingly bouyant...I was one of the last people to get back on the boat and I relished the time on the water in the peek-a-boo sunshine, even the sunburn I got for neglecting sunscreen
I must admit though that it was a thrill to go to the very large fabric store in Oahu and marvel at the rows and rows of colorful Hawaiian prints, to run my hand over the cool cottons and bright blends, to be amazed by the variety and the myriad ways that artists rendered flowers and patterns, darkness and light. The biggest challenge for me in curtailing my spending will be staying out of the fabric stores, and I make no promises here.
There is something marvelously freeing in this, something that detaches my soul from its grasping at material treasures and inspires it to cling to heavenly things, and to the One who can give me the strength to let go of what enchants, but does not enrich me.
I have been blessed with wonderful opportunities to "preach" at my parish of St. Anthony by my forward thinking and somewhat rebellious pastor who has recognized my talent for both the written and spoken word. I had hoped to offer a reflection on next week's gospel which is about the man who has an overly abundant harvest and decides to tear down his barns and warehouses and build new ones. It is from this gospel the phrase "eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die" (sometimes used in reference to the time before the Great Depression) is gleaned. For the wealthy landowner, so secure in his harvest, dies on the evening he makes this declaration. What prefaces the story of the rich farmer is a request of Jesus from a man to make his brother share his inheritance. Jesus, however, has something to say about greed.
As I pondered the word "greed" I thought of it as a contraction for "great need." While this insight may be neither original nor profound (although it seemed quite relevant) it does seem to have merit. The great need we often have in our lives that leads us to desire and acquire is often a deep spiritual need--one we refuse to recognize in a world that tells us that "things" will make us happy. The irony of desiring to possess things is that we are already possessed by One who loves us beyond any measure we could possibly use. So when I ask myself, as my son did, "but do you love this?" I can honestly say that there is very little of my material possessions that I love, and what and who I love most, is the One who has given everything to me.
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